56 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan 15 



was keenly interested in finding out what were 

 the actual facts with regard to the alleged in- 

 juries to fruits by insects. He had studied 

 the matter carefully for a great many years, 

 and from all he had been able to see and learn 

 from the writings of reliable observers there 

 had been no case of actual injury to uninjured 

 fruit proved which was undoubtedly due in 

 the first case to bees. He showed a diagram 

 of the mouth parts of the bee and the wasp, 

 and explained the use of each. He was under 

 the impression that nearly all of the injuries 

 attributed to bees were begun in the first place 

 b)' wasps, ants, or some other insect or bird. 



Tue question was by no means a new one — 

 it had been studied for a great many years, 

 and he believed that there was a great deal of 

 ignorance about the whole question which 

 ought to have been solved before this, either 

 by bee-keepers or the students of insect life. 

 However, from all that he had been able to 

 read he believed that en'omologists were al- 

 most all of the opinion that bees were not re- 

 sponsible for the injuries somtimes attributed 

 to them. 



He read from the Rural New - Yorker of 

 November 10th an article entitled " Do Bees 

 Injure Fruit? "which was written by Prof. 

 Shngerland, of Cornell University, one of the 

 very first practical entomologists in the United 

 States. This article detailed some very care- 

 ful experiments which were carried out by the 

 Agricultural Department at Aurora, Illinois, 

 by which colonies of bees were kept in a closed 

 building so that they were brought to the 

 stages of hunger, thirst, and starvation by ar- 

 tiicial conditions, but could nnt be induced in 

 any instance to attack the fruit exposed unless 

 it was first punctured or injured in some other 

 way. 



He thought that every member of the Bee- 

 keepers' Association should read this article, 

 and should be in position to speak definitely 

 with his neighbors and those with whom he 

 came in contact on this question. 



These tests were continued for many weeks, 

 and the conclusion drawn by Prof. Slingerland 

 was that the experiments showed that honey- 

 bees are not only unable to penetrate the skin 

 of fruits, but they also appear to be unable, 

 even when impelled by the direst necessity, to 

 penetrate the films surrounding grapes, even 

 after the skin has been removed. 



One of the contentions with regard to bees 

 being a nuisance was that bees stung pickers 

 in fruit gardens, and worried horses when they 

 went to the trough to drink. His own opinion 

 was that, although many people were afraid of 

 bees, and often made them sting by hitting at 

 them, bees never sting except in self-defense 

 or in defense of their hives. 



Attain, it was claimed by many that the bees 

 stung the fruit, and that this induced decay. 

 This he believed was entirely erroneous ; and 

 although he had not tried any experiment he 

 would certainly suppose that the formic acid 

 which forms the poison of the bee's sting 

 would have exactly the opposite effect, and 

 would preserve the fruit rather than cause it 

 to decay. It is well known that wasps pre- 

 serve the caterpillars and other insects which 



they stored up for their young by stinging 

 them, and that insects stung by wasps remain- 

 ed alive, but in a perfectly torpid condition, 

 for several weeks. The formic acid of a bee's 

 sting is almost identical, chemicall}', with 

 chloroform, so that practically the food of 

 wasps was chloroformed and remained as fresh 

 food for the grubs of the wasps for a long 

 time, owing to the antiseptic properties of the 

 poison. 



An interesting feature of this address was 

 an explanation of many of the devices found 

 in flowers as the means provided by nature to 

 secure cross fertilization. Some of the more 

 prominent methods by which certain insects, 

 particularly those which, like the honey-bee, 

 fly rapidly from plant to plant, were illustrat- 

 ed by means of excellent diagrams showing 

 the different forms of flowers and their parts ; 

 that the stamens and pistils, the two essential 

 organs in many plants, were not ripe at the 

 same time ; and experiments were mentioned 

 by which it was proved that it is more advan- 

 tageous for a flower to be fertilized by pollen 

 from another flower, or from the same kind of 

 flower, but on a different plant, than it is if 

 its own pollen were used. It was even stated 

 that some flowers are actually sterile to their 

 own pollen. 



He urged bee-keepers to strive to put them- 

 selves in the position of being able to give 

 definite opinions on sucli important questions 

 as this one which had now come up, and 

 pointed out that it was one which concerned 

 every one of them ; that as a society they 

 should band themselves together for mutual 

 protection, not against fruitgrowers or any 

 one else, but simply to be able to speak posi- 

 tively, and give the actual truth with regard 

 to these and similar matters. He was quite 

 sure that bees did not injure fruit, however 

 ripe it might be, unless the skin was actually 

 cracked bt forehand, either with their mandi- 

 bles or tongues or stings. Many of the en- 

 lightened fruit-growers know only too well the 

 enormous advantage of having bees near their 

 orchards, and s- me actually keep bees in their 

 orchards simply for the benefit of bees work- 

 ing on the flowers. He felt sure that fuller 

 knowledge of the actual habits of the bees 

 would bring about a better understanding be- 

 tween fruit-growers, and would be of enor- 

 mous advantage, both to them and bee keep- 

 ers, whose interests were identically the same. 



In our next issue I hope to give a report of 

 another paper read at this convention — exper- 

 iments in wintering, showing comparative 

 losses between outdoor and indoor wiutering. 



G. N. Z., Conn. — We know of no way of 

 bleaching colored extracted honey. If you 

 desire a light-colored article for pharmaceuti- 

 cal purposes, the only thing to do is to buy 

 the light colored honey in the first place. The 

 whitest honey in the world is that from wil- 

 low herb. This is almost absolutely water- 

 white. The next lightest is the mountain 

 sage, and the next in order is basswood, then 

 clover. 



